A/N: Review shout-out time!

Thank you to SarahMarie! You made me smiiiiillllleeeee so big! Thank you so much for your kind words, I love to know that my story is finding a home out there in the world with your bookish heart. :) Sasuke is a cutie pie, isn't he? ;) P.S. Thank ya for your talks of Texas! I had to look up what HEB was though, because my midwest mind had absolutely no idea. XD Our grocery stores here (Or at least where I'm living) are predominantly called Jewel-Osco, fun fact there for ya.

XXX

When I opened my eyes it wasn't Sasuke that sat beside my bed. No, it was that vampire who took and then brought me to him in the first place, Suigetsu.

Sunlight washed into the room, and I tried to remember what happened after Sasuke left my room last night.

"Finally awake, eh?" Suigetsu said.

I blinked slowly, turning my head on the pillow to face him fully. My body felt numb all over, and I couldn't move anything without seriously willing it to do so. "What are you doing here?"

His arms were crossed. "This is the thanks I get for healing you?"

Instantly, my body became hot with nerves. "What?" He fed me his blood? Even after I'd told Sasuke not to?

He grimaced, holding his hands up before him, palms out. "Don't get your panties in a bunch. Sasuke told me that under no circumstances should I feed you my blood. I was ordered to get you a healing drought. So, you're welcome and stuff."

"A...healing drought?" That would explain my inability to move correctly.

"You know. Something to make you feel better-"

"I know what it is," I snapped.

He clucked his tongue, flashing his fangs at me in a joking manner. "Touchy, touchy." He then leaned over, resting his elbows on the bed, resting his head against one of his balled up hands. "You broke something in your side. My guess is that it was your hip. When I came in, Sasuke was poking you to see where you were injured, and you made such a freaking loud yelp when he touched your hip. The sound just about killed my ears."

I could feel the heat come to my face at the image of Sasuke assessing my woulds. "I don't remember him doing that."

"Well, girlie, that's 'cause you were out cold," he said. "Must've been some break for you to cry out like that even when you were unconscious."

I wanted to get away from this topic. "Where is Sasuke now?"

Suigetsu shrugged, leaning back in his seat then. "He stayed here for a while, stalking around your room while we waited for you to wake up. I guess he couldn't take it anymore, so he left. Don't know where, but he's gone for now."

Putting my energy into moving was tiresome, and it took almost everything I had just to push myself into a sitting position. Suigetsu made an awkward move as to help me, but he stopped as I fixed him with a look.

"Open that drawer and give me the crystal orb," I said, pointing towards my bedside table.

He needed only to move his left hand a foot or so to grasp the tiny knob. He opened the drawer, but stilled as he took in the Eye of Amavi. "How did you get this?"

"I just found it in a room one day. Give it here."

Slowly, he moved his hand in to take the smooth orb out, then he quickly passed it off to me before anyone appeared that he was thinking about.

I rolled the orb in my hand, brushing my fingers across its surface, looking into its smoky, swirly depths. I did not think about my friends or family, I thought about Sasuke.

And his face materialized in the swirls before me.

There was no energy left in me to feel any sort of embarrassment as Suigetsu looked into the orb as well.

He appeared in the distance, slinking around a forest under a large cloak. Even though it was broad daylight he was walking around.

My brows furrowed. "Has he completed it? He can't have…"

Suigetsu shook his head. "No, the ritual hasn't been performed yet. Sasuke just does this because he's an idiot. I think he wouldn't mind if the sun ate him up one of these days."

I tilted my head to the side as I watched him traverse the forest. "No, he said he doesn't want to die yet, not with…" I stopped myself before giving too much away. I gave a nervous glance to Suigetsu, which he just returned with a solemn nod.

"Itach still out there?" he finished my sentence. "Yeah, that's true. But, sometimes he's still a stupid risk taker. I don't think any other vampire would chance feeding in broad daylight like he does."

Feeding?

My eyes turned back to the orb and I drank the scene in.

Suigetsu leaned forward then, taking in my sudden intensity. "Maybe we should put that thing away. It's not nice to spy on people."

"It's also not nice to knock them out and kidnap them," I snapped, clutching the orb tightly in my hands.

He was quiet for a while, but then finally said, "Fair enough."

And he let me watch.

He let me watch Sasuke move around trees, duck under low lying branches, maneuver with such an intense gaze upon his face that it was staggering.

In the distance, a plume of smoke wafted through the air, and Sasuke set a path for it. Eventually, he came upon a small area in the shaded forest, the sun only poking through a few spots in the canopy above. A lone woman sat near the fire, a pot hanging over it that she stirred every so often. A backpack sat only a few feet away. A traveler maybe?

He didn't hesitate as he swooped in, pulled her in his arms and whispered something to her. She went still then, not fighting at all to get away from him as he bit into her neck.

The orb fell from my fingers, dropping into my lap heavily. I turned my gaze away and threw the thing at Suigetsu, knowing he would take it easily.

"Put it away, I can't watch anymore."

"No," he said, urging the orb back at me. "You have to watch until the end otherwise you'll just assume the worst. And Sasuke doesn't deserve that."

I would not take it. I could not.

He pushed the orb into one of my hands, and I tried to fight him off but was easily overpowered in my weakened state.

"Watch," he ordered, pushing both my hands together on the orb with the both of his, leaving them laying over mine so I could not drop the orb even if I wanted to.

Sasuke was still feeding off the woman's neck, some blood trickled down the side of her neck, but she did not move away, did not scream for help.

Then he was finished, his fangs gleaming red as he tipped his head back from her neck. And she…

She was not dead.

He ran his thumb over her neck to smear the loose blood away, and he helped her maneuver into a sitting position, leaning her back against the base of a nearby tree.

And then he left her, running through the forest once again.

Suigetsu dropped his hands from mine, and I let the orb go, falling into my lap. I stared at it as Sasuke's face slowly faded, swallowed up by the wispy smoke.

My mouth hung open, unhinged slightly without knowing what words to form. Suigetsu took the orb from me and returned it to the drawer before anybody else's face could pop up. He watched me with careful eyes, waiting to hear my reaction. He made me watch, made me bare witness to Sasuke feeding, and he knew exactly what was going to happen. He knew Sasuke wouldn't kill that woman, knew that what I would see wouldn't end in death.

"You knew," I whispered, soaking in his telling face. "You knew he would let her live. He's done this before. Done it often."

He nodded. "Sasuke hasn't killed anyone for a long time. Fucking saint that guy."

"Why?"

"Why what?" he asked.

I looked down at my open hands, eyes following the lines etched across my palms. "Why does he let them live? How is he able to control himself like that?"

His eyebrows knit together, the side of his mouth quirking a bit. "You haven't guess that yet?"

"Can…" I pulled my fingers in to make fists. "Can all vampires do that? Do you all have the willpower to control yourselves?"

For a second, Suigetsu looked pained, but then the expression was quickly wiped from his features. "No," he struggled to get out. "Not all of us."

I opened my mouth, but then words failed me as the bedroom door opened. Sasuke stood there staring at me with such relief that it was overwhelming. Just moments before, I had witnessed him feeding off a human and he had absolutely no idea. No idea that the image of him biting into a woman and then letting her live was floating around in my mind as I stared back at him.

Suigetsu didn't say another word as he stood and walked out, turning his body as he past Sasuke, giving me one last look before disappearing from view.

A breath. Two. And then Sasuke strode to the bedside, looking down at me before kneeling on the floor, his arms resting on top of the blankets. I tried not to notice how close his fingers were to my legs, tried not to notice that I sort of wanted them to be closer.

"You're okay," he said, eyes never leaving mine.

I nodded. "Just a bit sore, but that's to be expected after consuming a healing drought."

He let out a soft sigh of relief. "I was worried when you didn't wake up."

I couldn't help the goading smile from shaping my mouth. "You mean you were worried that it would be all your fault if I were to die?"

He flinched, no manner of joking about him. "That is not what I meant."

I shrugged even though it was an effort. "Whatever. You know in your heart of hearts that it's true-"

"Sakura, I…" he snapped, but then reeled back, searching for the right words. "When that cave entrance shut, when I couldn't get inside, I…" His hand moved only a fraction before stilling, as if he wanted to reach for my hand but ruled against it. "I had no idea what was going on. I couldn't hear anything, couldn't sense you within."

"Makes sense," I said. "It was a spell, so it wouldn't surprise me if the whole place was warded against enemies like that."

The right side of his mouth dipped into a frown. He brought one hand back up to him, ran his fingers through his hair and then kept them there as he looked down at the blanket. "I don't know how it happened. I don't know how I only knew of the one and not the other vampires. For that, I am sorry."

I never thought he would apologize for it, but there he was saying the words.

"Sasuke-"

"But," he cut in, looking into my eyes once again. "I will say this. Even though it was a mistake on my end, I am glad to know your fighting is improving. You did an excellent job in dispatching them."

To hear the praise drip from his tongue was intoxicating. I wanted more of it.

"Does that mean you're going to go harder on me in training?"

He chuckled softly, the sound barely floating over to my ears. "Yes."

We stared at each other then, the two of us not speaking further. I drank in the sight of him, and he did the same to me. Losing ourselves in each other's presence, that's what we were doing. I knew it, and I bet he did too. Especially when a startled look took over his face and he quickly stood.

"Would you like me to get you anything?" he asked.

I shook my head. "I'm fine for now."

He nodded. "I'll leave you to rest then."

As he walked to the door, I found it in me to finally speak about it, to voice my thoughts, put them into tangible words. "I watched you feed."

His hand stilled on the handle, his back to me.

"I watched you," I said. "You found a woman in the woods, but you didn't kill her. You just fed on her for a few seconds before letting her go. Do you always do that?"

He would not turn around, would not face me.

"I saw it through the Eye of Amavi," I confessed. It was something he had allowed me to keep, something that he probably never thought would be used in such a way. He exposed himself, and now he was visibly trying to figure a way out of it, out of having this exact conversation.

"Get some sleep, Sakura," he finally said. "Yuko will be in to check on you in a while."

Then he shut the door.

XXX

Poor Sasuke, such a sensitive one! ;)

Alas, y'all, I did not get that job that I was so excited for. I have no idea what happened, it went so well. I even have a coworker who said the boss really liked me. I'm having her use her contacts to spy for me, to see what happened. Blegh, I'm so annoyed and sad :( Tell me nice things about my story to make me feel betterrrrrrrrrr.

Q: What movie universe would be the worst to live out your life in?

A: Dude, you guyyssssss! So, backstory: I'd heard about fortnite, but didn't really look into it. One day, I was talking with my coworker about how her son plays it and she watches. She explained to me that it was a survival game. You have to kill people not on your team, and you have to stay within the play circle, otherwise you are killed. Plus, you build forts and stuff. I wanted to try it, but knew my fiance had something called PUBG, which is very similar. Just minus the fort building and the kid cuteness.

Okay, so I played it, and I think I just about had a heart attack.

GUYS! Everyone is trying to kill you, and you have no idea where they are. I was moving my view around so much that I was started to panic; I could feel the anxiety creep up my body. It was horrible, absolutely horrible.

So, the answer to this question is The Hunger Games universe. Through playing PUBG, I have come to appreciate Katniss and Peeta's situation even more so. I was about to explode just from playing it as a computer game, I couldn't imagine going through that in real life. I would literally panic every second of every day, and then I would die of a heart attack. SO STRESSFUL!